BLIND ALLEYS IN THE CONTROVERSY在争议的死胡同

1、.SEIFRID: Blind Alleys95BLIND ALLEYS IN THE CONTROVERSYOVER THE PAUL OF HISTORYMark A. SeifridSummaryE.P. Sanders reading of Paul against the backdrop of covenantal nomism is badly flawed, since it obscures Pauls coming to understand the cross as working the justification of the ungodly. Two importa

2、nt extensions of Sanders paradigm also fail to illumine Paul in his context. Works of the Law are not simply ethnic boundaries, as J.D.G. Dunn claims, but marks of piety as well. N.T. Wrights proposal that Christ provided the solution to Pauls experience of exile reverses the manner in which exilic

3、language appears in Pauls letters. Contrary to the common assumption, Luthers theology of the cross and justification is not barren or irrelevant, and more closely accords with Paul than recent attempts to understand him.If Ernst Käsemann were to re-enter the current debate over Pauls Jewish ba

4、ckground and theology, I imagine that he might choose a title along the lines of the one I have given this essay.See N.T. Wrights Auseinandersetzung with Käsemann, The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith, TynB 29 (1978) 61-88. The title is drawn from Käsemanns essay Sackgassen im Stre

5、it um den historischen Jesus in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964) 2:31-68. His stentorian voice might do some good. Other voices which have dissented from the new perspective on Paul in its various forms since the ushering in of the post-Sanders

6、era have not been heard sufficiently, drowned out perhaps by a chorus of affirmation. That is not to suggest that the new perspective has been entirely deleterious in its effects. It should be viewed as part of a recent impulse across the discipline of theology to come to terms with the Reformers ar

7、ticle of justification in this generation, a necessary task. And it has called attention to the social dimension of justification by faith, a central facet of Pauls arguments which must not lie neglected. Yet while providing fresh impulses, many advocates of the newer reading of Paul have failed to

8、wrestle with the character of the Reformation debate. A so-called Lutheran reading of Paul has been dismissed, even by exegetes within the Lutheran tradition, without an adequate acknowledgement or perhaps in some cases knowledgeof what moved Luther and other Reformers to regard justification by fai

9、th alone as the first and chief article of confession of the Gospel. Ever increasing specialisation within the field of biblical studies has made us strangers to large stretches of the Christian tradition. We simply must find our way to a critical appropriation of the past, particularly in regard to

10、 this topic.In this instance the recommendation to retrace our steps holds not merely in a theological sense, but also in an exegetical and historical one. Current efforts at massive revision of our understanding of Paul have missed crucial signposts which might have prevented the interesting, but u

11、nproductive detour which much of current study of Paul seems intent on pursuing. The details of the debate have been outlined adequately in a number of recent surveys.Douglas Moo, Paul and the Law in the Last Ten Years, SJT 40 (1987) 287-307; Stephen Westerholm, Israels Law and the Churchs Faith: Pa

12、ul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) 1-100; Frank Thielman, From Plight to Solution (NTSupp 61; Leiden: Brill, 1991) 339-353; P.T. OBrien, Justification in Paul and Some Crucial Issues of the Last Two Decades in D.A. Carson (ed.), Right with God: Justification in the Bible a

13、nd the World (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992) 69-95; Donald A. Hagner, Paul and Judaism: The Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity: Issues in the Current Debate, Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 (1993) 111-130. It seems appropriate now to bring some pivotal points front and centre for consideration, and

14、to place the exegetical disputes in a broader context. Virtually all aspects of the new perspective, in both its spheres of inquiryearly Judaism and Pauline theologyhave been offered before. If it is new, it is so by virtue of its linking a Pharisee who knew divine grace and mercy with the apostle w

15、ho was sent by Christ to the Gentiles. Everything depends on how one sorts out the relation between this covenantal nomism of Pauls past and his transforming faith and work in Christ. Sanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism originally provided only the framework: Paul the Jew rejected Gods covenantal m

16、ercies because they were not Christianity.E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: a Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 474-511. Dunn has been in the forefront of building an explanatory bridge for the gap in the new perspective.See especially the collection of essa

17、ys: James D.G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990); Sanders has moved to close the gap in a similar way in his Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 154-160. In his reading, Pauls arguments on justification chiefly concern

18、his opposition to Jewish exclusivity. The discontinuity between Paul and his past should be understood primarily as his becoming an advocate for the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God, not as a release from a guilty conscience or a new understanding of divine mercy. More recently, Wright has

19、 claimed to find a continuity between Paul the apostle and early Jewish hopes for Gods saving covenant-faithfulness.See N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 268-279; The Climax of the Covenant (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 258-267. According to him, Paul

20、s faith in Christ resolved a fundamental longing shared by many among the Jewish people: the death and resurrection of the Messiah brought to an end the continuing exile of the people of God. Arguably, all other attempts to make sense of Paul and his arguments on the Law and justification within the

21、 framework of the new perspective are generically related to the twin themes of ethnicity and the end of exile, which Dunn and Wright have introduced.Some like Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People and Heikki Räisänen, Paul and the Law (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) do not try to m

22、ake sense of the whole Paul, insisting that Pauls thought is inconsistent at various points. Despite their improvements on Sanders work, these two proposals lead into blind alleys because they follow a path already mislaid.Some central elements of Sanders work on early Judaism serve his purpose of c

23、omparison with Paul rather poorly. The category of covenantal nomism becomes relatively meaningless for describing the soteriology of early Jewish groups when the terms of the covenant are in dispute.Covenantal nomism, as Sanders uses the expression, represents the idea that God saves those who by e

24、ffort and intent remain in the covenantal relation established with Israel, where forgiveness and cleansing are provided, Paul and Palestinian Judaism , 422-423. I have attempted elsewhere to show that Paul broke with a belief which this vague expression fails to articulate sufficiently: that the pr

25、omise of mercy is given to those who are faithful to the covenant.Mark A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: the Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (NovTSupp 68; Leiden: Brill, 1992). Timo Laato, working on the basis of Pauline anthropology and the structure of Pauls soteriology in comp

26、arison with Rabbinic materials arrives at basically the same conclusion. See his Paulus und das Judentum (Åbo: Åbo Academy, 1991). I am told Mark A. Elliott has made the same point in an unpublished dissertation, The survivors of Israel (Aberdeen, Ph.D., 1993). While remaining covenantal i

27、n structure, two representative early Jewish writings, the Community Rule from Qumran (1QS) and the Psalms of Solomon (Pss. Sol.), restrict the saving benefits of the covenant to a limited group within the nation. A measure of individualism enters here, especially in the Psalms of Solomon, since sal

28、vation is now contingent upon personal righteousness, adherence to the Law as it was interpreted within the community.See especially Ps. Sol. 9:4, 5. Neither writing displays any lack of assurance on the part of the pious, or any indication that salvation was viewed as earned or deserved. The Psalms

29、 of Solomon attribute deliverance to divine mercy. The sola gratia stance of the Qumran materials is particularly evident.The Qumran writings, by virtue of their predestinarian stance are firmly sola gratia, but not sola fide. They differ from both the synergism of the medieval via moderna and the P

30、auline theology of the Reformers. Pauls brief autobiographical statements about his life prior to his encounter with Christ conform to this pattern, especially as it appears in the Psalms of Solomon. He does not seem to have suffered from an introspective conscience and most likely viewed the righte

31、ousness which was his through the Law as a gift from God. Nevertheless, the encounter with Christ worked a conversion in Paul. Faith in the crucified and risen Messiah led him to reject this very understanding of divine favour as a gift to the obedient. Through appropriation of early Christian tradi

32、tions in which Jesus death was interpreted as an atonement for sin, he came to believe that salvation was mediated by the cross to the ungodly.1. Works of the Law as Merely Ethnic BoundariesDiscussion of Dunns proposal that circumcision and food laws served as ethnic boundary markers has tended to f

33、ocus, too narrowly in my view, on the meaning of the expression works of the Law. We will briefly revisit that exegetical debate below. Here I wish to examine in broader strokes the claim that Paul rejected a Jewish national righteousness. There is little doubt that circumcision, along with obedienc

34、e to food and Sabbath laws, served Jews as boundary markers. It is highly questionable however, that these boundary markers symbolised mere national identity. Ethnic traditions bear values which provide cohesion and continuity in community life. And while early Judaism was a national religion, it wa

35、s nevertheless a religion.That reality presses itself upon us from every angle in the early Jewish sources. It is not hard to find attestation that Jewish boundary markers could transcend racial lines. One immediately thinks of Josephus account of the circumcision of King Izates. Under the urging of

36、 a certain Eleazar, he was circumcised in order to become a Jew and, significantly, to ensure that he had truly conformed to the Law.Antiquities 20.34-48. The report, which is reflective of Josephus views, indicates that the way was open for outsiders to become Jews. He states elsewhere, admittedly

37、in an apologetic vein, that Moses the lawgiver took carethat we should not begrudge the things of the household () to those who choose to share them. For as many as come to live under the same laws as us, when they come he gladly welcomes them, supposing that the household relation () is not for rac

38、e alone, but for choice of lifestyle ().Contra Apionem 2.210. I fail to see how Josephus description of the welcome to Gentiles goes so far and no further, Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 232. True, there is a limited participation for passing visitors, as there is for any family, b

39、ut according to Josephus the door is open and the welcome mat out for those who want to stay: in contrast to the Lacedemonians, he claims, the Jews do not expel foreigners rather, we gladly welcome those desiring to share our (customs), Contra Apionem 2.261.This sentiment, although it does not remov

40、e the requirement of circumcision, is epitomised in the saying attributed to Hillel: Be one of the disciples of Aaron, who loves peace and pursues peace, who loves (all) human beings (, creatures) and who brings them near to Torah.m.Aboth 1.12.´While it is true that Jews protected their traditi

41、ons in distinctive practices, especially the boundary markers of circumcision and Sabbath observance, and while there does not appear to have been widespread Jewish missionary activity in this period, there is good evidence that in many places Jews were receptive to those outsiders who in varying de

42、grees associated themselves with the Jewish community.See Scot McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) esp. 11-48. The ethical dimension of the language used to describe Gentile adherents to Judaism is unmistakable: G

43、od-fearer is a designation for a pious Jew in the Scriptures, and the more Hellenistic term devout () represents a general expression for religious devotion, applied to Jews and pagans as well.See Folker Siegert, Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten, Journal for the Study of Judaism 4 (1973) 109-

44、164.The recognition of righteous Gentiles by some Jews led to a certain tension within Judaism regarding the importance of circumcision for salvation. Yet whatever their soteriology, those Jews who concerned themselves at all with Gentile participation in Judaism understood circumcision in ethical t

45、erms. Josephus narrative of Izates circumcision illustrates the situation well. Ananias and Eleazar disagree in their estimation of the importance of circumcision for Gentiles. The former judges that commitment to Jewish tradition is more important than the act of circumcision. Yet he does not regar

46、d Izates as having become a Jew without circumcision, or as having fully obeyed the Law: God will pardon Izates, because of the constraints of his situation. Eleazar, on the other hand, regards the failure to be circumcised as an act of impiety. Despite their disagreement, they both look upon circum

47、cision as a completion of the decision to worship God, a position which is reflected in Josephus own estimation of the divine protection afforded Izates after his circumcision: The fruit which comes from godliness () is not lost for those who look to him, and trust in him alone.Antiquities 20.48.Cir

48、cumcision here serves as a mark of faith and piety, not mere national identity.A similar sentiment appears in Contra Apionem 2.226, Let it be acknowledged: obedience to laws is a proof of virtue. Outsiders might have seen conversion to Judaism only as the transfer to another ethnos. For Jews like Jo

49、sephus it signified the embrace of monotheism: the coming to faith in the one true God and the rejection of idolatry.For Philo, too, circumcision represents self-control and the acknowledgement of one God as creator, Spec. Leg. 1.8-10. Fearing God did not in itself automatically secure a monotheisti

50、c commitment, circumcision effectively did.See Siegert, op. cit. 140-7. The other classic conversion story is that of Asenath, in which precisely the matter of monotheism is central.JosAsen 11-13. The intramural apologetic interest is apparent. How could Joseph marry a non-Jew? He didnt: she convert

51、ed. The walls are being preserved, but so are the gateways. Israels distinctiveness is regularly described in such terms elsewhere.E.g. LetAris 134-43, Wis. Sol. 13-16; m.Abodah Zarah. Paul and his Judaising adversaries in Galatia differed in soteriology, but like Ananias and Eleazar they represente

52、d an open Judaism, ready to find a way to secure Gentile morality and the worship of the one God of Israel. As we have seen with Josephus, such groups and persons draw conceptual distinction between purity rituals and moral concerns, even where they are joined in practice.See Mary Douglas, Critique

53、and Commentary, in Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (SJLA 1; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 141. Circumcision symbolised not merely separation from other nations, but an ethically superior monotheism.The religious character of Jewish boundary markers becomes even clearer when we turn to wr

54、itings which reflect tensions between various early Jewish factions. The judgement which we rendered on the expression covenantal nomism applies as well to the category of national righteousness. When one group of Jews regards another as outside the boundaries, the concept of nation is subordinated

55、to a larger idea of true religion and piety. This stance is a prominent feature of a number of the Qumran writings where the covenant is restricted to the community alone, and requires no elaboration here.See e.g. 1QS 1:7-8, 1:16-17; 10:10; CD 2:2; 3:13. It appears in other materials, although not i

56、n precisely the same manner. Where the sectarian stance recedes and intercourse with the larger society increases, the exclusivist use of terms like covenant and Israel disappears. A hope for national salvation is retained by envisioning the nation as converted to righteousness. An alternative soter

57、iological paradigm conditions the ethnic ideal. In the Psalms of Solomon this reshaping of covenantal theology takes the form of a distinction between the pious () and the sinners (). The former expression, along with similar terms, depicts the circle of the godly to whom the promises of Israels sal

58、vation are assured. The latter term (and related expressions) more often than not refers to wayward Jews, whom the coming Messiah will cast out from the covenantal inheritance.Ps. Sol. 12:6, 17:3. The pattern is repeated elsewhere in varying forms. For all its severity, 4 Ezra retains its hope in covenantal mercies for the righteous (iusti). True, Uriel rejects any offer of mercy apart from the Law, but he tacitly affirms divine patience and grace toward those who turn toward it. A later vision in 4 Ezra affirms the hope that the Messiah will mercifully deliver